Trust Science - Unless You Can't Trust Science, Say Scientists

That’s the title of an article that appeared in Science 2.0.  The article points out that “anti-science” attitudes are a bipartisan issue.  Biotechnology is emerging for the left what climate change has been for the right. 

Here are a couple of key paragraphs:

AAAS was likely also considering something only Science 2.0 had considered during the last presidential election, since the tale spun by science media during the Bush administration days was that Republicans took some sort of blood oath against science while Democrats were born being rational and super-smart and science-y, even if they were poetry majors; you can't expect people to trust the science consensus on global warming if you tell them to deny the science consensus on biology. It's as simple as that. Doing so just makes science look like an opinion.

Every American left-wing activism group tells its members that science is on their side when it comes to global warming but scientists are out to kill us when it comes to food and energy. From the Union of Concerned Scientists to Greenpeace to Sierra Club, they are all tripping over each other to declare that 'the science is not settled' on those things. The reason is because they are not in the science business, they are in the fundraising business and they are competing for the same demographic that is both scared of biology and inclined to believe global warming caused a hurricane.

Who Will Cover the Costs of California's Prop 37?

Friday Forbes.com published an article written by Nicholas Kalaitzandonakes and me.  Here  are a couple key paragraphs:

Lower income households across the United States spend a larger portion of their income on food than higher income households.  Lower income households also spend most of these dollars for food at home. High income individuals spend more at restaurants and eateries.  Similar trends exist for older relative to younger consumers.

And

Proposition 37 calls for mandatory GMO labeling of foods bought at the grocery store and consumed at home, but does not require the same for foods consumed in restaurants, cafeterias, catering, schools, and the like.  It also excludes all organic foods from mandatory GMO labeling irrespective of where they are consumed and of their GMO content.

Given these rules and exclusions, younger and more affluent consumers who spend more on organics and on food away from home would be less affected by Proposition 37. Poorer and older consumers could instead be called to foot the bulk of the bill implied by the Proposition while spending a larger portion of their limited income in doing so.

David Zilberman at UC Berkeley put out a blog post the same day covering some of the same themes.

Effects of FoodService Establishments and Information on Obesity

A recent paper by Alessandro Bonanno and Stephan Goetz in the International Food and Agribusiness Management Review looks at the relationship between food store density, nutrition education, and obesity.

Here is the issue:

Understanding the role of the food environment vs. nutrition education in expanding the share of adult population engaging in healthy eating habits has clear policy implications and is relevant for the agribusiness sector as a whole.  Food retailers and food service companies, as well as many food manufacturers, are under scrutiny for their potential roles in shaping diets and in contributing to the obesity epidemic. This study seeks to provide additional evidence on whether policies aimed at regulating the food environment (i.e., the location of food retailers and restaurants) are likely to achieve the intended goals

They find:

no evidence of a negative  causal relationship between the density of food-service establishments and the state-level incidence of adult healthy eating (similar to Collins and Baker, 2009, who find no “Granger causality” on obesity incidence using nationwide data), suggesting that policies aiming to restrict access to these outlets may have little impact on improving healthy diets. 

And:

Our results indicate that expenditures on nutrition education programs can improve eating habits and, indirectly, curb the incidence of adult obesity.  However, increases in nutrition education efforts would have to be substantial. . . . our results indicate that quadrupling average expenditure on nutrition education . . . could reduce adult obesity by 0.8%; the feasibility of such a large spending increase as a policy tool is unlikely

It's Gonna Get a Lot Harder to Eat Ethically

NPR ran a story a couple days ago on a move to recognize "plant rights" in addition to "animal rights."  I was a little surprised by some of the claims in the story:

After all, plants can sometimes exhibit humanlike behavior. . . . Some plants respond well to music. Some "smell" other plants. Still others seem to shrink away when touched.. . . . 

Plants display remedial types of memory and possess "anoetic consciousness" — the ability of an organism to sense and to react to stimulation . . . 

Some plants (such as chili peppers) may be able to "hear" other plants (such as sweet fennel). "We know that plants recognize what is growing next to them, . . . Plants can warn other plants of a predator by releasing a chemical, and the warned plants can release chemicals to make themselves unpalatable to the predator.

For those who are concerned about the harms caused by their diet, these sorts of findings aren't good news.  What's left to eat?  Water?

My TEDx Talk

Tomorrow afternoon I'm slated to give a talk at the Oklahoma State University TEDx event.  My understanding is that tickets are sold out.  However, the talks will be streamed live on streamed live on OState.tv.  My talk on the "Future of Food" should be on at about 5pm.  I'll put up a post to the video when it becomes available.